High Country Adventure!

Session 06

Sixth Session Summary:

Session Introduction: Twenty days passed since the party surfaced from the caverns where they encountered the kobolds. On that twentieth day, the party was commissioned by the baron to conduct a deep reconnaissance into the mountains to search for signs of a gathering kobold invasion, only to have their mission changed in order to confirm that the town of Boisen Springs has been attacked (maybe destroyed) by kobolds.

Ten days later, after refitting and preparing for an expected fight, the party arrived at Boisen Springs only to find it completely deserted…and utterly destroyed.

Clues such as footprints, pottery shards, and some lost weapons indicate and do confirm that this attack was done by kobolds, but some larger tracks (while also reptilian) did not appear to be kobold tracks, but something else. Martha climbed the town’s nearly razed tower and discerned that the attack came from the west of the town and the pillaging kobold army departed towards the north.

A full day’s investigation in the thorpe’s ruins found no one alive with some corpses dragged to the town’s outskirts where they were devoured by wolves, mountain lions, or (as the mammal tracks indicated) something larger and even more fierce.

As the chill in the air became heavier and the season’s first snowfall was threatening, party was deciding which way to travel — to the west and the origin of the attack or to the north, to follow the attackers — they heard a beating of leathery wings high in the air. While the party has heard the flap of bat wings before as well as that of the stirges deep in the forest, these sounds were made from something much, much larger…

Session Summary: That leathery flapping of wings turned-out to be something much, much worse than the beating of stirge wings.

The wings belonged to a large, white or ash-grey bellied dragon, the type of whom had not been seen in this region in anyone’s memory except for those of only the longest-lived demi-human races of the elves or dwarves. To the surprise of all, even the oldest of these races could not place the appearance of dragons in their own lifetimes, but in the lifetimes of their grandparents.

An ancient evil had resurfaced. Whether it was because the humans drove deeper and deeper into the mountains or because they razed and pillaged the land for their own personal wealth (and not that of the elder dragons), remained unknown. All that was known was that the dragons had returned and were actively reclaiming their place as the only true rulers of the mountain regions who were willing to raze or enslave those foolish enough to venture into their ancient fiefdoms.

But this is beyond the party’s experience…but by the feelings in their thumbs, they knew that something wicked this way comes…

The party, shortly after seeing the dragon’s overflight of Boisen Springs, was beset upon by a handful of flying spiretop drakes and a pack of fell drakes sent to kill the latest visitors to the now destroyed monastery. Before anything else could happen, the party sent Bart in all haste back to Trindam’s Pass in order to give a first report to the Baron on their day’s findings and confirm the destruction of Boisen Springs. Just as soon as Bart turned the bend leading into the town and had ridden beyond earshot, all hell broke loose as drakes attacked the party.

While Iorveth kept some of the most dangerous drakes from re-entering the monastery’s ground floor and Micha fought-off the flying spiretop drakes that were constantly grabbing at his pouch, weapons, and backpack with Callie and Saleigh helping pick-off the drakes landing on the monastery’s broken upper-level balcony.

Martha, still in the tower keeping watch, found a way to get back into the fight by climbing up the tower, jumping through a broken window, sliding down the roof and landing just a few steps ahead of the swarm of fell drakes and led them into an ambush inside the chapel. She later awed the entire party once again by leaping from the balcony onto the back of a drake that was flying away with Callie’s crossbow, causing it to crash and drop the crossbow, turning the tide of the battle, but not before Callie accidently discovered that the hot spring well in the center of the destroyed church did, indeed, have exceptional healing powers.

After the fight and a bit of wound-licking, the party followed the sole escaping flying drake that was heading in the same direction as the dragon had previously flown as well as in the direction of the kobold tracks. It took the party four days to track the kobolds, specifically the one kobold that Saleigh and Callie glimpsed and assumed was spying upon all the happenings in Boisen Springs. This kobold may have also been the one responsible for setting the drakes upon them, but no one could be sure about this.

The kobold tracks led to a very large encampment of kobolds. Callie and Martha went ahead to scout. They found that the war party was at least fifty strong with nearly a half dozen needle-fang drakes in their midst acting like attack dogs, the same kind that gave Io a run for his money in the monastery’s ruins. Callie and Martha took good notes and were ready to disappear back into the woods and head back to their own party, but Callie slipped on some loose rocks and alerted the kobolds to their presence.

Callie and Martha ran as fast as they could to warn the party to prepare for an assault by the now enraged kobolds chasing after them. The party had just enough time to prepare a hasty defense on a rock outcropping when four squads of kobolds attacked led by a handful of extremely competent and well-trained leaders.

The battle was fierce as the kobolds swarmed and overwhelmed nearly every party member at one point in time, Micha more than most. In a battle that ebbed and flowed in each side’s favors, the party led by Io and assisted by Micha was able to blunt the assault upon their middle and slowly attrit the kobolds attacking their flanks. Callie and Saleigh were able to defeat one set of kobold attempting to turn their flank, but Micha could not hold back the onslaught on his side of the perimeter and was constantly being swarmed and knocked down, only to keep getting up and fighting over and over, but having all breakables he was carrying in his backpack crushed (including the large egg he had taken from the hatchery weeks earlier).

Eventually Saleigh’s summoned wolf spirit companion checked the kobolds’ advance. The panic it threw into the kobolds was just enough to allow the party to regroup at just the right points in time to turn the tide of battle.

A kobold sniper took note of her and Io’s effectiveness and began to take pot shots at them only to have Callie see this kobold’s game early forcing her to run away from the safety of the group in order to grab and hold this particularly deadly kobold’s attention. Her actions, while eventually successful, did cost her her life, but allowed her party to survive.

During the end of the fight, the party was torn between rescuing an exhausted Micha who was being dragged into the woods by drakes and ill-tempered kobolds and aiding Callie who was in a death-match with the kobold sniper. While assistance was given to both, the party’s unattended horses were beset upon by a pack of hungry wolves that feasted on the helpless and tethered horses and, in the process, destroyed all the party’s gear fastened to the poor creatures.

By the end of the day, the kobold war party was defeated, but Callie lay dead and the party had just enough food to get back to Boisen Springs where they hoped they could gather supplies that would allow them to return to Trindam’s Pass with a proper report to render to the Baron Merrick Harland.